


all the demons, they survive it (you don’t have to say anything; just scoot closer to me)

by Jay815



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3242198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jay815/pseuds/Jay815
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for the prompt - 'lawstein; when they spend their whole relationship joking around but then carm has a nightmare and Danny's all sweet and fluffy'</p><p>hollstein; lawstein</p><p>-</p><p>“I guess being trapped underground for a couple of decades wipes out more than your ability to throw an insult, huh, Coffin-Muncher?”</p><p>“Get over here and I’ll show you how far I can throw, you gargantuan mass of bumbling pea-pods.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the demons, they survive it (you don’t have to say anything; just scoot closer to me)

“You’re a fucking cheater, Karnstein,” Danny growls, slamming her fist against the floorboards.

“Minotaur dung, fuckface; I don’t actually need to cheat because I’m not a total imbecile incapable of crossing the room without tripping over my Achillean feet, unlike some other less-developed Neanderthals sitting around here taking up more space than any single person should.” Carmilla folds her arms and leans back, a haughty look on her face.

“At least I have  _integrity_.”

“Oh, is that the 2015 term for ‘too stupid to figure out strategy’?”

“I guess being trapped underground for a couple of decades wipes out more than your ability to throw an insult, huh, Coffin-Muncher?”

“Get over here and I’ll show you how far I can throw, you gargantuan mass of bumbling pea-pods.”

“Oh, you wanna fucking go?” Danny plants her hands on the floor, half-standing up.

“Enough!” Laura, scowling, raises herself up from where she’s reclining on Carmilla’s bed to glare at Carmilla, then at Danny, who looks away, chastised. “If you’re going to fight again, take it outside; if I have to pick animal fur out of my laptop  _one_  more time, I’m going to confiscate all of the board games and leave them in Perry’s room.”

“But cupcake,’ Carmilla whines, pulling herself against her own bed and propping herself up on the edge with her elbows, ‘I’m just about to set a world record for how many times a person can annihilate smelly dogs at ‘Mastermind’.”

Danny pulls out a few of the pegs from the board and drops them into the back of Carmilla’s shirt before propping herself on top of her head, crossing her arms over Carmilla’s shoulders. “You know I’m only one game behind, right? In which case  _I’ll_  be setting the world record for how many times a  piece of sparkly clay can get utterly  _crushed_  at ‘Mastermind’.”

The retort gets her flung off Carmilla’s back and Danny lands heavily on Laura’s bed, but she pops back up almost immediately, fists clenched and held up in a fighting stance.

“Come on, you bouncy wolf pup, I dare you.”

“Yeah? Let’s take it outside so I can prove that your brain wasn’t the only thing to atrophy while you were stuck in that coffin.”

Laura groans and covers her face with her heavy  _Language and Power in Asian Societies_  reader. (SilasU’s version included, at various points in time, an indeterminable number of chapters on curses, mythology and how to end a lifetime feud by turning an entire family line into grains of rice.)

Somewhere above her, she hears what sounds like a very fast-moving pillow  _thump_  against what is probably someone’s ass.

(Probably Danny’s.)

.

“You know, Sullen Cullen, you’re a total, unrelenting bitch, but you have pretty decent taste in alcohol.”

Carmilla grins blearily at Danny, reaching over to wrangle the almost-empty bottle of whiskey from her, but she misses and lurches forward before giving up, letting herself lie with her head down on Danny’s knee.

“At least I’m not a literal bitch, eh, Growlithe?” Carmilla mumbles.

“Weak, Karnstein. You know I’m Rapidash, if anything. Much taller, nobler and far more majestic,” Danny says, taking another sip from the bottle before leaning back heavily against the stone blocks of the Astronomy Tower, sighing softly.

She absentmindedly pats Carmilla’s hair then nudges at her face with her knee. “Come on, Zombie Breath. Turn over before you throw up on these pants; plus, you can’t stare broodily at the stars while you’re drooling a wet spot onto my pants.”

Carmilla flops over onto her back, but continues to use Danny’s leg as a pillow. “Silas has its downsides but the enchantment on this roof is a hell of a perk. I’m pretty sure we’re not even supposed to be able to see Andromeda, much less this clearly.”

Danny hums, trying to balance the tall bottle on Carmilla’s nose.

“Get that outta my face,  _pup_.”

“Is it blocking your view, you crooked nose dwarf? You’d be Grumpy, by the way,  _obviously_.”

Danny nearly loses her grip on the bottle when Carmilla sits up abruptly to glare at her. “I do not have a crooked nose, Fire-Crotch.”

Danny leans back and nods sagely. “Keep telling yourself that, Owen Wilson.”

“Take that back, you overgrown dachshund,” Carmilla growls, grabbing Danny by the lapel of her letterman jacket.

Danny glares at Carmilla and slowly, deliberately raises the bottle to her mouth and finishes the rest of the whiskey, ignoring Carmilla’s indignant,  _Hey!_  before putting the bottle down and quickly standing up, with Carmilla still holding onto her jacket. She presses her forehead against Carmilla’s and  _pushes_ slightly with her head, making Carmilla lose her balance and stumble back to fall heavily on her ass.

Carmilla doesn’t bother getting up, just sprawls over the rooftop floor and laces her hands together under her head. “Someone’s an aggressive drunk.”

Danny rolls her eyes and slips out of her letterman jacket before lying down next to Carmilla, throwing her jacket over them as she does so.

They lie there for a little while, looking up at the night sky, which glows with an impossible number of stars, and then Carmilla softly says, “It’s the first thing I really saw when I got out. I looked up and… It was smoky and dusty near the ground, but it was a cloudless night and there were barely any buildings, especially not the way there are now. The sky was so big. It was the biggest thing I’d ever seen. It was beautiful.”

Danny hums quietly, low in her chest, half-closing her eyes, listening to Carmilla breathing deeply beside her.

Danny makes sure to walk Carmilla back to her and Laura’s room an hour later, and helps Laura tuck her in, because Danny might've finished the bottle of whiskey, but Carmilla had chugged most of it first.

As Danny strolls back towards the SumSoc Lodge, she glances up and thinks about Carmilla’s peaceful face, half-showing above her blankets and tucked against Laura’s arm, and she smiles, because Carmilla’s right – the stars really are quite beautiful.

.

Carmilla doesn’t wake up screaming, but she sits up with a sharp jerk, her heart pumping uselessly in her chest, her blankets tangled around her blood-soaked body, blood under her fingernails, blood in her ears, blood in her lungs, choking her from the insid-

No.

No, sweat. Sweat-soaked clothes, bed sheets drenched in sweat, only air rushing in her airs, sweet, cloyingly sweet, useless air in her lungs.

(Darkness, a sightlessness that was, is, total and absolute.)

“Hey, hey, you’re here, it’s okay, you had a nightmare, c’mon, Carmilla, you’re in your room at Silas University, it’s 2015, you’re in the room you share with Laura.”

Carmilla blinks, hard, and realises that she’s cast in a gentle glow from the lamps in the room, and when she looks up, Danny’s hovering at the end of her bed, eyes wide and soft and blue.

(Blue like the sky outside, where she can go any time; Maman is dead, gone, dead, she’s never going back into the coffin, never.)

With clenched fists, Carmilla pulls her knees around her, hugging them tightly to her chest, (it feels small and compact and  _good_  – for decades, she didn’t have the space to pull her knees up, even after she’d broken them from trying to use them to bash through the lid). Carmilla keeps her eyes trained on Danny, trying to breath, focussing on the soft blueness that watches her carefully.

(It’s not darkness, the darkness is gone,  _she’s_  out of the darkness, away from Maman, who’s gone forever, she’s never coming back; she’s never going back.)

Danny voice is calm, sincere, insistently present. “Laura’s out of town, remember? Her grandpa died and she went back for the funeral, but she’ll be back in another day. I was marking some essays, and earlier tonight you threw Lucky Charms at me because you wanted to watch the rest of ‘Orange is the New Black’, remember?”

Carmilla swallows sharply through her throat – it’s hot and dry – and nods. She remembers. Danny had come over for their usual Wednesday TV-night even though Laura wasn’t there, and she’d brought carrot sticks and peanut butter, and Carmilla had made Archie jokes, and then Danny had spread out a bunch of papers on Laura’s bed at 2am while Carmilla fell asleep on her own bed.

Still looking at Danny, who doesn’t break her gaze, Carmilla croaks out, “What time is it?”

“A bit past 4am.”

Carmilla nods again, breathing shallowly.

“You wanna stand at the window?” Danny reaches out her hand slowly, and Carmilla hesitates, then reaches out to take it.

(It’s reassuringly warm.)

Danny pushes the window open with one hand and leans back against the closet as Carmilla leans halfway out the window, breathing deeply, eyes wide open and looking up at the sky. It’s cloudy tonight, but she can see the forest in the distance, North Quad below her to the right.

Danny raises her eyebrows at Carmilla when she pulls back into the room.

“Better?”

“A little.”

“You wanna go for a run?”

Carmilla flexes her jaw, which aches from a decades-long clenched pain, and nods.

Carmilla shifts almost as soon as she’s outside the dorms, and Danny leaps into a painful shift, her bones cracking and her skin rippling, as she bounds after Carmilla, who swiftly veers off into the woods, sleek and fast. Danny lopes after her steadily, the  _deep-wood-night-dark-smoke_  scent strong in her snout; she doesn’t race to catch up, knowing that Carmilla will run out of steam quickly.

Danny stops at the edge of their usual clearing next to the creek, panting lightly, and whines softly in her throat.

Carmilla, back in human form, turns her head to look at Danny and smiles tiredly, beckoning with one hand.

Danny meanders over and presses her snout against Carmilla’s hand, lets Carmilla run her hands gently over sharp teeth.

“Y’know, Scooby, it’s a pity you don’t have hands in this form, because you could do with brushing your teeth.”

Danny snaps at Carmilla’s hands, closing less than a hair’s breadth away from them with a loud  _click_ , then flops down onto the damp grass next to Carmilla, feels a hand settle against her warm flank.

Danny’s only half-awake when the sun rises, and she gazes at the distorted colours with half-lidded wolf eyes, yawning widely.

Carmilla sits up and scratches behind Danny’s ears.

“C’mon Moro, let’s head back.”

They race back, and Carmilla would let herself get dragged by the toes into hell by a rotting hellhound while still proclaiming her victory, but really, they both know Danny manoeuvres the forest better and shot out of the trees three and a half seconds before Carmilla did.

(This fact does not stop Carmilla from telling Laura that Danny broke at least four trees with her huge face on their way back.

Danny mutters under her breath that it was actually Carmilla’s monumental and unmanageable ego that actually caused these felled trees.

Laura just sighs and pulls on her new sound-cancellation headphones, grumbling about the disrespect of giant animals breaking centuries-old trees for  _sport_.)

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up @ imagine-some-gays.tumblr.com


End file.
